TOP-20 Best Games Like Dark Souls: Souls-likes on PC and Consoles

The best soulslike games on PC and consoles — from FromSoftware's genre-defining classics to the biggest releases of 2025–2026. This list rounds up the finest souls-like games for fans of Dark Souls and Elden Ring.

The soulslike genre owes its existence to Demon's Souls, released by FromSoftware in 2009. A PlayStation exclusive, it first earned a cult following among hardcore players in its homeland of Japan. From its core mechanics, FromSoftware's lead designer Hidetaka Miyazaki built a new game — Dark Souls — which launched a series that became iconic the world over. Soon the "soulslikes" started arriving: games that copy the Dark Souls formula of success. An entire genre was born, built on the hallmarks of Dark Souls — punishing difficulty, "bonfires" (checkpoints for saving and leveling up), enemies that respawn on a location once you die, collecting experience ("souls"), stamina management in combat, fragmentary storytelling, and — most importantly — gruelling boss fights that force you to learn every move set.

Fans have long since cleared all three Dark Souls games, and more than once. Before we get to the games carrying the torch, let's revisit the benchmarks — the soulslikes made by FromSoftware itself.

Elden Ring is the current king of the soulslike genre. The 2022 Game of the Year by most critics and players, and FromSoftware's biggest commercial hit (30 million copies sold). Going in, fans were expecting "Dark Souls 4 in an open world" — what they got was a game that folded in the key mechanics and ideas of every previous FromSoftware souls game: the Dark Souls series, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Demon's Souls and Bloodborne. So play Elden Ring and you'll get a taste of every defining trait of the genre.

From Dark Souls it takes the combat (parries, dodge-rolls, stamina management), the checkpoints ("bonfires"), the loss of experience on death, and the storytelling. From Sekiro comes the samurai class and overall boss design philosophy; from Bloodborne, the dungeons (just without the "chalices").

There's plenty that's its own, too: a huge open world, freedom in how you approach the story, riding the map on a spectral steed, summoning "spirit ashes" instead of phantoms, stealth mechanics, and "ashes of war" that augment your weapons. In the world of soulslikes, Elden Ring is an absolute must-play — what else is a genre fan going to be telling their grandkids about, if not a six-hour brawl with Malenia?

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice still feels like an experiment for FromSoftware, the way Dark Souls 2 once did. In place of the studio's usual medieval atmosphere there's a samurai setting, and the gameplay is built around parrying and breaking an enemy's posture. The result is a kind of rhythm combat — only instead of listening to music, you're keeping the beat in your own head. There's a single weapon, no armor, lots of stealth and verticality, far less loot than in the Dark Souls games, and you always get a second chance in a boss fight.

In its bones, though, the game is FromSoftware through and through: "bonfires" that resurrect enemies when you rest, healing flasks, tangled levels full of shortcuts, and the studio's signature flourish — fast, merciless bosses.

In 2020 Sony — which still holds the rights to Demon's Souls — funded the Demon's Souls Remake, a PlayStation 5 exclusive that drew enormous interest from players worldwide. Bluepoint Games handled the remake with great respect for the original, preserving every key mechanic Miyazaki created.

Demon's Souls is where the hub (the Nexus) first appeared — the prototype for Dark Souls' Firelink Shrine — along with the Maiden in Black (a precursor to the Fire Keeper), backstabs, messages on the floor, phantom invasions, crystal lizards, Patches, the dragon on the bridge, the poison swamp, and so much else every soulslike fan now takes for granted.

Because the game was a "trial run" for FromSoftware, you can see how some mechanics were later reworked for Dark Souls: Demon's Souls had five isolated, large levels rather than one interconnected world, checkpoints only where you'd killed a boss, healing via herbs rather than flasks, and bosses built around finding a weakness rather than reacting and memorizing timings.

Bloodborne is another PS exclusive from FromSoftware, and the injustice of it still keeps PC players up at night. An official PC port — or a sequel PC players could finally call their own — is craved about as desperately as a new Half-Life. Probably in vain — Miyazaki has admitted he doesn't like looking back at his past work — yet hope refuses to die.

But Bloodborne is unique not only because of its exclusivity: the game traded the dark fantasy of Dark Souls for Victorian Gothic and Lovecraftian horror. By the way, check out our list of the best Lovecraftian games. On top of that, FromSoftware set out to punish the defensive playstyle that worked so well in Dark Souls. There's no shield, so you have to fight as aggressively as possible. Your supply of healing doesn't refill at a bonfire, but in the thick of a fight you can "rally" lost health back by striking the enemy.

The rest keeps FromSoftware's gameplay formula intact: "bonfire" checkpoints, "soul" collecting, a hub location, labyrinthine levels, shortcuts, tough bosses that demand flawless knowledge of their timings, and dangerous mobs that don't forgive a moment of carelessness. We cover the game's strengths in our feature celebrating Bloodborne's anniversary.

In this section we've gathered the best games similar to Dark Souls but not made by FromSoftware. Each one borrows a handful of the legendary series' core mechanics — bonfires, stamina management, heavy boss fights — but adds elements from other genres or its own ideas on top. There are near-verbatim Dark Souls clones here, and there are bold hybrids of soulslike with slasher, shooter or metroidvania. From gothic fantasy to science fiction to Victorian gothic: the genre's formula turned out to be far more flexible than it looked at launch.

Lies of P is, without question, one of the strongest soulslikes of recent years. At first glance it adds little to the genre's standard toolkit. Instead of "bonfires" there are "stargazers" that serve as checkpoints and resurrect enemies; instead of "souls" there's "ergo"; the Firelink Shrine becomes Hotel Krat; and, just like in Dark Souls, there are tangled levels, shortcuts, and multi-phase bosses.

But the game doesn't just reproduce the genre's classic formula flawlessly — it brings its own original ideas, turning imitation into craft. Visually it leans closer to Bloodborne, while its combat blends Bloodborne and Sekiro: the emphasis is on perfect parries to stagger enemies, and lost health can be "rallied" back. Its own touches include assembling and disassembling weapons, plus the need to sharpen your blade mid-fight. And, of course, the haunting atmosphere of a grim fairy tale.

The release of Black Myth: Wukong set off fierce debate in the community: some call it a pure-blood soulslike, while the developers themselves and other players see a dynamic action game closer to God of War or Devil May Cry. There's no settling the argument (and does there need to be?), so we'll just lay out both sides.

The developers may disown the "soulslike" label, but they took plenty of the genre's mechanics: "bonfires" (here, "shrines") that refill your healing and respawn monsters, a limited number of "flasks" (gourds) for healing, bosses that require studying their move sets, and the value of stamina in a fight.

Arguing it's a regular action game or a "souls-lite" (a simplified soulslike): no death penalty, a single weapon with stance-switching, a focus on flashy, high-speed combat without blocking or a shield, a conventional skill tree instead of leveling base stats, and cinematic storytelling. Setting aside the genre semantics, we'll say this: "soulslike" or "souls-lite" is beside the point — what matters is that the game is well worth experiencing for yourself.

The game called Lords of the Fallen first arrived back in 2014. It was a soulslike, but — by many players' reckoning — a fairly weak one. So publisher CI Games decided to start over: it took the concept away from Deck13 and handed it to other developers, and in 2023 a new Lords of the Fallen appeared, at once a reboot and a sequel to the previous game. The gamble paid off: the game became bigger, more varied, and even closer to the gothic style and spirit of the Dark Souls trilogy.

It packs a huge selection of melee weapons and armor, three schools of magic, and a combat system built on tactical fights with dodge-rolls, blocking, parrying and stamina control. At the local "bonfire" equivalents you can level up, tweak your gear, and respawn every enemy on the map.

The game's fundamental twist on Dark Souls is the mechanic of parallel worlds — the realm of the living and the realm of the dead. You can cross between them at the press of a button: dying in the world of the living sends you to the world of the dead, where you can keep fighting. There's also a neat mechanic for creating your own "bonfires" by planting a special flower in the right spot.

Nioh 2, like the whole Nioh series, was made by Japanese studio Team Ninja, the team behind the Ninja Gaiden slashers. That heritage explains why, unlike most soulslikes, Nioh 2 leans on a complex slasher-style combat system and the collection of randomized loot, à la Diablo.

A standout of its combat is the three stances available for every weapon, each completely changing the move set and attack speed — which creates enormous variety in fights. Every weapon type also has its own tree of active and passive abilities. Note, too, the mechanic of parrying a boss's red (critical) attacks, which lets you deal huge damage and stagger the enemy. Otherwise, Nioh 2 is built on the classic soulslike skeleton: resting at "bonfires," gathering "souls" (Amrita), managing stamina (Ki), and summoning phantoms (real players or bots).

There are plenty of Star Wars games, but when Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order launched in 2019, few could have imagined that soulslike mechanics could be woven into a story about a Jedi knight. All the more surprising, then, that it worked: the game, and its sequel Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, became a successful hybrid of soulslike, metroidvania, and cinematic adventure. We have collected more games like this in our list of the best action-adventure games.

Following the FromSoftware formula, the developers added "bonfires" to the galaxy far, far away — restoring health and respawning enemies — plus a limited number of healing charges (an Estus stand-in), combat built on timing, dodging and stamina control, and levels laced with shortcuts.

Of course, the Jedi games were made for a mass audience, so some of the soulslike's hardcore mechanics had to be "softened": there's the option to pick an easy difficulty, an emphasis on spectacular parkour, plenty of cutscenes, and an easy-to-follow story.

The Surge 2 was made by Deck13, the studio we mentioned earlier: it was responsible for the original Lords of the Fallen back in 2014. Stripped of the rights to continue that series, the studio tried again to build a good soulslike and switched to a sci-fi setting. The first attempt — The Surge — turned out mediocre, but the follow-up, The Surge 2, earned solid reviews from critics and players. The game is a rare example of a "cyberpunk soulslike," where instead of magic and swords there are exoskeletons, saws and nanotech. You restore health at a medical station, scrap drops instead of "souls" (which you can lose if you don't reach your death spot in time), and at the heart of combat are the familiar stamina control and dodging.

The developers' own ideas stand out, too: clever dismemberment mechanics (you can sever robots' body parts to craft armor for yourself), targeting enemies' weak points, a combat drone to help you out, and directional parrying (you not only have to parry on time but also guess the direction of the enemy's blow).

Code Vein is a striking example of the "anime soulslike," adding to the base Dark Souls mechanics a distinctive visual style, character customization, oversized weapons, and the plunging necklines of its female characters. The game copies the structure of Dark Souls' gameplay almost word for word, which is exactly why genre fans took to it warmly. The hero restores health and levels up at a "mistletoe," gathers not "souls" but "haze" in battle, carries a limited number of healing charges, and dodges enemy blows with rolls. There's even a location inspired by Anor Londo from Dark Souls.

What sets Code Vein apart? It offers a flexible class system that lets you instantly switch from a mage to a heavy warrior, team-based play (a story NPC companion is always at your side), and an unusual visual mix of post-apocalypse and vampiric gothic. You can find more games about bloodsuckers in our list of the best vampire games.

Mortal Shell has made a mixed impression ever since release. On one hand, it was built by an indie studio, and it shows: the game world is made up of just four locations, the weapon arsenal is fairly small, and the combat mechanics aren't what you'd call varied. This is an intimate love letter to the Dark Souls series from indie developers. The game has that same viscous atmosphere and FromSoftware's core mechanics: resting at "bonfires," enemies respawning on a location after you die, swamps, abandoned temples, cryptic dialogue, and inscriptions to read off of stones.

On the other hand, on a modest budget the developers came up with an interesting take on classes and defense. The hero can possess "shells" — the bodies of fallen great warriors — gaining their skills, health and memories. Each shell has unique stats and its own passive skill tree. Health can only be restored by parrying and with consumables. There's no shield; in its place is a hardening mechanic that blocks an enemy's blow. And the most interesting part: when the hero dies, he's literally ejected from the shell — but if you can jump back in, the fight continues.

Remnant 2, like its predecessor Remnant: From the Ashes, transplants the genre's hardcore formula into a third-person shooter, adding procedurally generated worlds on top. Instead of dark fantasy and combat built on dodging and parrying, the game leans on shooting, ammo management, archetype classes, and co-op. Levels are generated procedurally, there's no death penalty, and instead of imbuing weapons with elemental damage there are special firearm modifiers.

From Dark Souls it borrows "world stones" — a "bonfire" analog that refills ammo and healing and respawns the level — and "relics," an Estus stand-in. The combat still demands learning your timings: dodge a couple of times too late and you're back at the checkpoint. And there are the multi-phase level bosses with their unique move sets — which you can take on solo or in co-op. We have collected more titles like this for you in our list of the best co-op games.

Soulslike mechanics look great not only in big three-dimensional projects but also in more modest 2D, side-on games. They're often blended with metroidvania elements — exploring an interconnected world and gradually unlocking new abilities — producing the specific subgenre of the "souls-metroidvania." You're still asked for precise timing, memorized boss move sets, and careful resource management; it's all just wrapped in pixel or hand-drawn art. There's more of the genre in our list of the best metroidvanias.

Blasphemous and its sequel Blasphemous 2 are compelling examples of 2D soulslikes. They're brutal hybrids of soulslike and classic metroidvania, steeped in the imagery of Spanish Catholicism and the Inquisition. At their core is classic platforming, but with a precise quoting of Miyazaki's philosophy. At altars the player saves, restores health, and refills healing flasks. The story is full of religious metaphor, riddles and ambiguity. Enemies hit hard, locations bristle with traps, and bosses demand memorized timings.

The games bring their own ideas, too: a distinctive weapon-upgrade mechanic (in the first part there's just one weapon, in the second there are three) and progression not through leveling stats but through enhancing your gear. Worth noting, too, is the platforming: you can find yourself back at a checkpoint simply for misjudging a jump.

The developers of Dead Cells decided to cross a procedurally generated roguelike with metroidvania, and — as if that weren't enough — added a combat system inspired by FromSoftware's games. The premise is simple: the hero has to uncover the secret of a curse and defeat his enemies, all while being unable to truly die. After each death he possesses a new body and starts the level over. Right there you can see a nod to the "hollows" of Dark Souls. The game also has a hub where the character restores health, refills healing and unlocks new gear; "souls" drop from enemies; there's a healing flask and a whole Easter-egg room with the motto "Praise the sun!"

That said, Dead Cells is first and foremost a high-speed "roguelike" with all the trimmings: levels and enemy placement are randomly generated, on death you lose not only "souls" but everything else, and instead of leveling the hero you upgrade your arsenal. We have collected more games with a similar structure in our list of the best roguelike games.

Salt and Sanctuary meticulously transplants the mechanics — and the very atmosphere — of Dark Souls into a 2D plane. In a world peopled by the walking dead, mad knights and Lovecraftian monsters, the hero must find a kidnapped princess and unravel a sinister secret. At sanctuaries the player respawns, levels up and resurrects every monster on the map, while salt is the local "souls" analog that drops from enemies. Fights are relatively slow and measured; every dodge, block and swing of the blade drains stamina.

Its "own" touches include several mechanics inspired by the Castlevania series and classic platformers. Defeating bosses earns the hero brands that unlock new movement abilities. Instead of leveling the character, there's a vast skill tree where you unlock "licenses" to use weapons of a given tier and gain passive bonuses; and in place of Dark Souls' covenants there are seven creeds that change your healing type and the merchants' stock.

Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights and its sequel Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist are fairy-tale 2D action RPGs that blend melancholic dark fantasy, metroidvania and soulslike. Their approach to combat is unique: the heroine doesn't physically attack — instead she summons the spirits of fallen warriors, who materialize for an instant, strike, and vanish. Progression isn't about raising stats but about assembling a "deck" of spirits: you can equip up to six different beings at once, from swordsmen and archers to giant spiders. There's no death penalty, and no stamina gauge either.

So what's soulslike about them? Benches (a "bonfire" analog), enemies respawning on a location after you die, a limited number of healing charges, grim lore, and grueling multi-phase boss fights that demand perfectly memorized timings.

The melancholic isometric action game Death's Door sends the player to reap the powerful souls of immortal beings. As in Dark Souls, there's the collection of souls from defeated enemies to level up the hero's base stats, tough bosses that demand high focus, dodging and learned timings, "bonfires," branching levels with shortcuts, and a melancholic, fragmentary lore.

The game is far friendlier to the player than most soulslikes, though. It's oriented toward exploration rather than the dogged memorization of enemy attacks. As in The Legend of Zelda, exploration hinges on gadgets: you find a bow, a fireball or a grappling hook that let you solve puzzles and open new paths. You can only heal at special pots by planting found seeds in them, but in exchange there's no death penalty and no stamina gauge.

Let's note separately which soulslikes you can play with an Xbox Game Pass subscription. Up front: the catalog doesn't include the classic FromSoftware games (Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Sekiro), but even without them there are plenty of excellent soulslikes to find. Keep in mind that the Game Pass lineup changes regularly, so before you start it's worth checking whether a particular game is available right now.

Of the soulslikes with cards above, Game Pass features Remnant 2 and the Star Wars Jedi duology (Fallen Order and Survivor).

The subscription also lets you play Wuchang: Fallen Feathers — a grim action RPG set in Ming-era China with a demanding combat system (added to Game Pass on day one);

Nine Sols — a hardcore 2D action game with an emphasis on parrying, reminiscent of a two-dimensional Sekiro.

And if that feels like too little, or too easy, take a look at our list of the hardest games that will absolutely make you suffer.

Interest in soulslikes hasn't faded since the days of the Dark Souls series. Every year developers put no fewer than a dozen soulslikes on the digital shelves, replicating the Dark Souls mechanics with varying degrees of success or trying to fuse them with their own ideas. Below are the most notable entries of the past two years: projects that have actually shipped and gathered critic and player reviews, rather than just flashing by in a trailer. If you're choosing where to start with the current wave of soulslikes, use this section as your guide.

The First Berserker: Khazan draws attention with its unusual cel-shaded graphics, which look like dark anime brought to life. Unlike many soulslikes, the game has a clear, easy-to-follow story based on the Dungeon & Fighter franchise, about the great general Khazan, who is unjustly accused of high treason and sent to his execution.

In its gameplay and combat, the game feels more like a mix of Nioh and Sekiro than the unhurried Dark Souls. From soulslikes it takes checkpoints ("bonfires") where you level up and refill your healing, enemies respawning on a location after you die, the accumulation of "souls" (lost on a second death), aggressive bosses that demand learned timings and move sets, and the critical importance of stamina in a fight.

As in Sekiro, the game emphasizes parrying — to drain the enemy's stamina — over dodge-rolls. That said, Khazan is more merciful to the player than many soulslikes: you can choose an easy difficulty, and you're awarded a bit of experience for every failed boss run. Read our The First Berserker: Khazan review.

Nioh 3 continues Team Ninja's series of samurai soulslikes. The third installment adds a semi-open world and the concept of two completely different combat systems — the player can instantly transform from a heavy, powerful samurai into a fast, nimble ninja. There's even more loot: armor, weapons and talismans with random effects, the series' signature tactic of interrupting bosses' red (critical) attacks, and the ability to summon the spirits of defeated bosses into battle.

At its foundation, the game still runs on classic Dark Souls mechanics: saving at "bonfires" with health restoration and enemy respawns, experience dropping from enemies and staying at the spot of your death, the importance of stamina, and very fast, very "beefy" bosses. More details in our Nioh 3 review.

A soulslike is a video-game genre combining high difficulty (enemies hit hard, and mistakes quickly get you killed), fights with location bosses, respawning enemies and the loss of experience after the character dies, checkpoints for saving and leveling up, and the need to study enemy timings — the windows for parrying, dodging and attacking.

Soulslike fans play them on the highest difficulty and never accept help from anyone. But if you're new to the genre, it's better to spare your nerves and start your acquaintance with soulslikes on Elden Ring. The game packed in most of FromSoftware's signature mechanics and added an open world to them. If a boss is too tough, you can go off and explore other locations, level up, and come back to test your strength again. And if things get really rough, you can summon a helper for any boss fight.

Newcomers might also get on well with Dark Souls 3 (the game is linear but has fewer mechanics than Elden Ring, so it can be easier to pick up) and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (where you can choose an easy difficulty).

The main difference between Elden Ring and the Dark Souls series is the seamless open world you can explore in whatever direction you choose. Among similar games with soulslike elements, we'd single out Lords of the Fallen (2023) — it offers a huge, semi-open world with boss fights and the genre's other typical traits; Dragon's Dogma II — there's no Dark Souls stamina bar, but there is a large open world, respawning enemies and boss fights; and Ghost of Tsushima — on the highest difficulty this game turns into a soulslike that demands memorized timings, parries and dodges.

Yes — for weak PCs and laptops, the classic 3D soulslikes of years past and modern 2D souls-metroidvanias are a good fit. Among the former: Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Blade of Darkness, Hellpoint; and among the latter: Hollow Knight, Salt and Sanctuary, Blasphemous and Blasphemous 2. These games are well optimized, don't require a powerful graphics card, and will run even on a "potato" PC. You'll find more examples of good games for weak PCs and laptops in our list of games for weak PCs and laptops.

The soulslike genre gains new entries every year. In 2025–2026 we got Wuchang: Fallen Feathers — a beautiful, grim role-playing action game set in medieval China with a complex combat system;

AI Limit — a sci-fi anime soulslike in a post-apocalyptic style;

Code Vein 2 — a continuation of the anime-styled soulslike series with a focus on time manipulation and vampiric abilities.

A few more large-scale soulslikes are expected in 2026:

Beast of Reincarnation — a grim action RPG from Game Freak about the warrior Emma and her dog Koo in a post-apocalyptic Japan of the year 4026, with combat that sits between action and turn-based commands.

Phantom Blade Zero — a dynamic "kung-fu soulslike" that pairs parry timing with slasher elements.

Valor Mortis — a first-person soulslike set in a world that blends the historical Napoleonic era with magic and the walking dead.

The Duskbloods is a new Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive from FromSoftware, built not around a traditional solo campaign but around PvPvE battles for up to eight players. The game has a dark Gothic aesthetic with vampire motifs, characters with different weapons and abilities, and a central conflict built around the hunt for the “First Blood” against the backdrop of humanity's twilight.

As for Lords of the Fallen 2 — the sequel to the 2023 game about journeying between the realms of the living and the dead — its release has been pushed back to 2027.

What was the very first soulslike of your life? Tell us in the comments.

Since the first Dark Souls, players' interest in soulslikes hasn't let up. Why? Anyone who's played even one soulslike knows the answer: for all their difficulty and occasional cruelty, the games of this genre give you an incomparable sense of satisfaction after beating a tough boss — a victory wrung out against all odds after hours of dogged attempts.

Cleared every game in our list above and still feel like it wasn't enough? Even then we've got something to recommend — for instance, our list of the best action-adventure games. And here are a few more games beyond the main soulslike lineup:

For example, the charming hand-drawn action game about a little fox, Tunic. Don't let the cheerfully colorful look fool you — this is a real soulslike with stamina control, timings, boss fights and respawning enemies.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty — another soulslike from the creators of the Nioh series, this time set against a dark-fantasy take on China's Three Kingdoms, with "bonfires" and parries of bosses' critical attacks.

Drova — Forsaken Kin — a grim isometric RPG that blends the unwelcoming atmosphere of Gothic with soulslike combat mechanics.

Darksiders 3 — a continuation of the well-known series about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which shifted from the series' usual beat-'em-up gameplay to soulslike mechanics.

Once you've cleared these too, come back again and we'll pick out more — good games never run out. And in the meantime, as Solaire of Astora would say: "Take care. And don't you dare go hollow."